Startup Weekend is always a crazy ride of emotions, intensive learning and lack
of sleep. The last Nelson one was no different and it was another incredible
experience for me. I have done more than 20 Startup Weekends by now and one
would think I get used to the awesome energy and enthusiasm but to be honest
every weekend is a new experience and every Startup Weekend I learn a lot from
all the people involved in making this event so awesome.

There are a few new elements we tried out this time around, one was the
greeting part at the very start. At the He Tangata Weekend we had Jeremy Banks
to provide the cultural aspect of the weekend and he started out with everyone
getting a chance to say who they are, where they are from and why they are
here. We took that and were fortunate that Sacha MacDonald explained the idea
to us and started us off to an awesome weekend.

Here are a few impressions of the weekend

The pitches were amazing, it always blows me away how the teams progress from
the first 1 minute pitch on Friday, then the first pitch practice on Saturday
night, when most of them are grateful that there is one more day to work out
all those holes they just found in their business, to Sunday night.

Even though everyone won lots on this weekend the judges decided that a novel
baby monitor from the NapNanny team was the standout. In fact, they have
already started their kickstarter campaign and plan to launch the device for
real - we will report progress here.

About

startup.school.nz is a bunch of people that are passionate to transform New Zealand into startup central. We use the term _startup_ very loose and really focus on businesses that have the potential to have a substantial impact on their community.